Skip to main content
Main

Tomatoes on Toast

Tomatoes baked with butter, cream, and milk sauce served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomatoes on Toast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and cut the tomatoes in half crosswise and place them in a buttered baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle the tomatoes with salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley.

  3. Place a small piece of butter on top of each tomato.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes, being careful not to overbake.

Assemble and serve

  1. Prepare the toast.

  2. Carefully lift one half of a tomato onto each piece of toast.

  3. Make the sauce by combining the remaining butter, milk, cream, grated onion, salt, and pepper in the baking pan.

  4. Pour the sauce over the tomatoes and toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Soften during baking to form the base, releasing juices that add moisture and gentle acidity.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Milk
Thins the cream-based sauce and adds moisture and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat for rich flavor and helps the tomatoes brown lightly in the oven.
Grated onion
Adds a savory aroma that flavors the sauce.

The step that matters

Avoid overbaking the tomatoes. Tomatoes contain a lot of water. Overbaking breaks down their structure so they collapse and release excess liquid, which thins the sauce and makes the toast soggy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, flour, pepper, butter, onion):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, flour, pepper, butter, onion. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes